Artistic Director and founding member of Kartemquin Films, Gordon Quinn has been making documentaries for over 50 years. Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun Times, called his first film Home for Life (1966) "an extraordinarily moving documentary." With Home for Life Gordon established the direction he would take for the next four decades, making cinéma vérité films that investigate and critique society by documenting the unfolding lives of real people. 

Joanna Rudnick is an Emmy®-nominated director and producer.

Jerry Blumenthal, one of the founding partners of Kartemquin Films, was a director, producer, editor and sound recordist with Kartemquin from 1967 until his passing on November 13, 2014. His most recent completed work was as Editor on Kartemquin's 2010 documentary, Prisoner Of Her Past.

Howard has covered the arts for the Chicago Tribune since 1978 and joined the staff in 1983. He has written six books: "The Art of Inventing Hope: Intimate Conversations with Elie Wiesel," “Portraits in Jazz,” “Let Freedom Swing,” “Jelly’s Blues” (with William Gaines), “Van Cliburn” and “Prisoner of Her Past” (originally published as “The First and Final Nightmare of Sonia Reich”).

Zak is an Emmy and PGA award-winning documentary filmmaker who has made films for over 15 years.

Currently, Zak is producing several feature films: City So Real with producer/director Steve James; Until the Lion Speaks (working title), for Concordia Studio, with co-directors Bing Liu and Joshua Altman; and The Ants and the Grasshopper (working title), a film he is also co-directing/producing with Raj Patel and producer Rachel Wexler.

Diane Quon is an Academy Award-nominated producer who worked as a marketing executive for 17 years at NBC and at Paramount Pictures before moving back to her hometown of Chicago.